6th- pizza luce, hopkins
13th- crossroads deli, minnetonka
25th- in season, minneapolis
27th- eddington's, minnetonka
mom had wanted to try the lil'gracie ('mozzarella cheese and red sauce topped with veggie sausage, mushrooms, green peppers, onions, and our muffaletta blend of green and black olives, garlic and roasted red peppers') the last time we were here, but i talked her into something else.
the pizza, with tax and apparently an upcharge for switching the mozzarella for soy cheese for mom was about $25 (i'd say the cheese switch ran about $2), but we had a coupon for free artichoke dip with it, so that's $7.39 for free or something. we picked it up, so no tip was needed either. i guess the cost worked out in the end. math is hard!
the dip was fine reheated- more on the creamy side than the chunky side of things. i do wish they'd cut the bread all the way through though.
and i don't know if it was the vegan cheese or what, but the pizza had too much going on and nothing to unite it- it was a bunch of different flavors, but nothing stood out in a dominant way. and with all the toppings, it seemed odd that it was also kind of bland, other than the texture of the vegan sausage, nothing stood out anything more than a chunk. that was disappointing. it worked a lot better the next day, when reheated with more (real) cheese on top.
13th- crossroads deli, minnetonka (b)
good thing i keep track of dinner, sometimes- mom once more went for the very tasty broasted chicken instead of more ill-advised items- the menu has changed since we were last here a few years back, the shepard's pie she liked was off the menu, and the rachel sandwich now uses turkey pastrami instead of turkey, which is why i avoided it.
with the winner, winner chicken dinner what was odd is that you can have the all you can eat broasted chicken for $11.99, or the regular menu version with the same accompaniments for $12.99... so even if you don't eat the first plate, you've saved money. strange math, that. anyway, the chicken was crispy on the outside, tender and flavorful on the inside. even if it isn't an all you can eat night, it's worthy.
especially as the gravy wasn't at all weird like last time, and the cole slaw was also decent. mom liked the mashed potatoes, i thought they were too smooth and perhaps maybe out of a box, but couldn't say for sure i only had a tiny taste. they were edible, at least.
since i was (very unusually for me) wanting dessert, i went with just a bowl of the matzo ball soup ($5.59 for a bowl with one matza ball). the texture and flavor were a bit... weird. the soup part tasted like maybe it sat around too long or they used frozen onions or perhaps used only dirty peelings in the stock. it was off-tasting. the matzo ball wasn't fluffy (my preference) or overly heavy but it also had a weird taste or texture that you don't usually have in matzo balls... like they sprayed something with a flavored cooking spray before they stuck it in the soup or it was mass produced. i wouldn't get it again.
mom liked the pickled beets they brought, i liked the pickles (i'd say probably a three-quarters dill, if it was full on they need a bit more seasoning in the mix). we both liked the bread, the darker ones better. what i liked even better than the bread and butter was the bread with the... mustard. they had a sweet and tart honey mustard from mustard girl on the table, and i, for the first time in my life, put that on my bread instead of butter (and i love butter) because it was *that good.* no lie. i got a bottle to take home. strange, yet true.
as for dessert, i was kind of craving red velvet cake, and they had slices for $4.49. as mentioned i'm generally not a 'sweet' dessert person at all. and cakes in particular seem to leave me nonplussed at best. but this slice? was awesome. tender, moist, fruity- i think they had some sort of raspberry jam between the layers- with a perfect textured and flavored not overly sweet cream cheese frosting and some nuts on top.
i will go so far as to say that paying even $4,49 for one this cake slice would be more worth your dollar per flavor than the costo-sized cake they had (at costco, of course) for $7. ok, no, i haven't had that one, but i've tried bits of costco cake. i wouldn't really wouldn't go out of my way to eat it again. this? i go out of my way. i would specifically go here to eat this if i were in st. paul or something. (and for the last time here, i'll state i am not a dessert person, and generally don't like cake. it's that freaking good. )
so yeah, loved the cake, the mustard, the darker bread (rye, wheat, etc.), the chicken. the rest of the food was questionable to ok enough. service was overly busy, though, for a half-full parking lot and most of the seating areas were about half full. service ended up being more of a team effort. i wonder if they were short-handed. it was enough to notice and have some almost-too-long but not quite waits. kind of nice to use the groupon ($11 for $22 worth of food) here, maybe we'll come back sooner next time.
24th- in season, minneapolis (b-)
in season is to fugaise as auriga is to piccolo. kind of backwards, admittedly... but it works. auriga was seasonal, simply prepared food, as is in season, plus the setting is a bit more homey and rustic. both fugaise did and piccolo looks more towards a refined food experience. both chefs took a few years off between the two projects and wanted something a bit different when they returned.
in season, working out of the tiny space that used to be some sort of cafe maude offshot, is a bit cramped (hello, eavesdropping) but there's a casual, pleasant vibe there. local art is featured on the walls, low key dance music was playing. it was convivial (see: auriga). fugaise was a bit more imposing and restrained and the lack of windows had something to do with that. (and auriga and in season- both parking situations ended up with a long walk... in season really needs to change their web site statement saying there's 'plenty of onsite parking' as it's the opposite of that, especially in winter).
i went here with someone who's love of fugaise equalled or exceeded mine. so yes, we had high expectations. that could be why a few things were kind of disappointing. in fugaise, all things that used to live in the water that came out of that kitchen were top-notch. they served the standard-bearing for the twin cities, if not father afield. the fish was always perfect. saunders=seafood. so we ordered (to split) the roasted monkfish with 5-spice sweet potato gnocchi and spinach in a beurre blanc ($24).
the dish was ok when you had the gnocchi in your bite, but both the slightly overcooked and underseasoned monkfish wasn't that exciting, and the spinach was really bitter. the gnocchi helped when eaten with the items, as did the beurre blanc. yes, we just expected more from the dish than it could give us.
but to loop back to the beginning, we decided to order three things off the menu and split them. they don't have courses per se, though some dishes are smaller and some larger.
cheese plate with a chevre that was mild and creamy (and had the benefit of sitting out the longest- we thought it would be stronger, so we saved it for last) that i can't recall details about, pleasant ridge reserve (straight outta sconnie) that was kind of like a slightly cheddary gruyere to me but hadn't sat out enough for me to catch the full flavor effect, a machengo, and a northern lights (representing st. paul) blue cheese that i quite liked with not quite enough house made fig jam and a microgreen and green apple salad ($14 for the large menu one, there's also a $7 smaller version you can have for dessert besides this). you get a good amount of cheese to split, which is nice. though maybe i would drop the machengo and go for another local cheese.
it would've been nice to not have to ask for bread. and butter. and have most of the bread that we got burnt. but if you ignored the crispy bits of bread and used the enjoyable citrus butter it was good. the jam and green apple bits were good with the cheeses, too.
the hit dish of the evening was a amish chicken confit with sunchoke risotto and black trumpet mushrooms with a parsely foam ($15). the individual ingredients were cooked to perfection and boy did they play well together. we were both surprised that the mushrooms held the dish together, it's not something that is usually an anchor flavor. and the foam wasn't just there for the sake of having foam, like most dishes have, it brought both flavor and color to the plate (which was not the most attractive color scheme).
service would've been a lot better had we had any other server. i got there a few minutes early and had determined that the server we ended up with seemed in the weeds and possibly a newbie. bad restaurant karma holds that server would therefore be ours. there was some chipping in by other servers and the host, but even so it didn't run smoothly at all.
admittedly it is still early days in this building, so nothing so bad happened that i would avoid it. but when i go again, i'd go either with an earlier or later reservation earlier in the week- this would help out both parking and to get a better table- ours table in the middle, the only other choice was right near the doorway, which had nothing stopping the cold air getting in. i got brushed a lot by our server due to the lack of space, plus i didn't get a good kitchen view. but i'd still like to see what don can do in the summer with more items in season.
will i love it like fugaise? time will tell, but frankly i'm a sucker for french or french-inspired places (even if they are in bat caves). i may eventually love it like auriga.
27th- eddington's, minnetonka (c)
maybe i was more suggestable than usual, while watching a show on the travel channel there was a segment that hyped soup... which sounded really good. so mom and i headed to an eddington's for the first time in about a half-decade or so. and a lot of the menu is still the same. they're not on restaurant.com anymore, we had a coupon where you could get the all you can eat soup, breadsticks and soda for $7.99, which was reasonable,
mom had the beef garden vegetable, which was the best of what she tried. she thought the jambalaya was too spicy (and even if i weren't allergic, it's minnesota and they should avoid that... i'm guessing it wasn't even close). i tried the kloski chicken noodle she had- it was overly salty, even for me, and tasted like it had too much tarragon or some dusty herb like sage in it. it was weird.
the wisconsin cheddar tasted a lot like the wild rice, except slightly more cheesy and the wild rice had more texture. i couldn't finish the wild rice soup and the cheddar made better breadstick dip than soup. the chicken tortilla chowder (what made it chowder, i know not- maybe they added cream for no good reason) was good with the added pico de gallo, shredded cheese and blue corn tortilla strips. it was the most decent of what i tasted. could've used black beans maybe.
the breadsticks were good- warm and with garlic and salt. i did wonder what would happen to the extras of those (and the extra soup and salad bar). we were there for dinner and made up half the business for the time we were there. there was one front of house person doing the dishing of soup, ringing up and such and once back of house person prepping stuff. i wonder if they make money sunday evenings?
anyway, it worth a try. soup is generally comforting if nothing else. and warm. but i think the problems with the soups is the base- we're guessing they make one base and use it for many soups and if they don't get the rest of the stuff right they tend to taste bland and boring (see: cheese and wild rice soup- fraternal soup twins).
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